Thermostats & Climate

A thermostat only knows the temperature where it hangs, which is usually a hallway. If the upstairs bedroom runs four degrees warmer or the home office is always cold, the hallway reading doesn’t help. A thermostat with remote sensor support fixes that: you put a small wireless sensor in the room you care about, and … Read more

You don’t need a new fan to control it from your phone or with your voice. There are four ways to make ceiling fans smart: a smart fan switch on the wall, a switch that runs the fan and the light separately, a small module inside the fan’s canopy, or a bridge that learns the … Read more

Does Nest work with HomeKit? Partly. No Nest product has native HomeKit support, but two Nest thermostats, the Nest Thermostat (2020) and the Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen), join Apple Home through Matter. That’s the only official Nest HomeKit connection Google offers. Nest cameras, doorbells, Nest Protect and older Nest thermostats have no official path … Read more

A C-wire adapter gives a smart thermostat the constant power it needs when your wall has no C wire, without running a new cable through the wall. It’s a small module that mounts at your furnace or air handler and reuses the wires you already have. The right one depends on two things: the brand … Read more

The best smart ceiling fan is the one that works with the smart home you already have. Every fan here has a built-in light, an app, and a remote, but they reach your phone and voice assistant in different ways: some are native HomeKit accessories, some use Matter, and some rely on their own app … Read more

A smart thermostat for baseboard heaters has a different job from the Nest or ecobee on a hallway wall. Electric baseboards run on line voltage (120V or 240V), and the thermostat switches that full current to the heater itself. Nest, ecobee and most other smart thermostats are built for 24V central systems, so they can’t … Read more

A smart thermostat for mini split systems isn’t the same thing as the Nest or ecobee on a hallway wall. Most ductless mini splits take their commands from an infrared (IR) handheld remote, not from low-voltage thermostat wires, so a regular smart thermostat has nothing to connect to. What you want instead is a small … Read more

After Google Nest, ecobee and Honeywell Home are the two thermostat brands most people end up choosing between. The ecobee vs Honeywell decision comes down to a few things: which smart home platform you use, whether you want room sensors, and what wiring you have behind your current thermostat. The comparison has also changed recently. … Read more

If you’re wondering how to install a smart thermostat yourself, in most homes with a standard 24V system it’s a 30 to 60 minute job with a screwdriver and your phone. The wiring is low voltage, the terminals are labeled, and the app walks you through setup at the end. What decides whether it goes … Read more

The best thermostat for heat pump systems is the one that knows when to keep your backup heat switched off. A heat pump moves heat rather than making it, and most ducted systems pair it with a backup source (electric heat strips or a gas furnace) for the coldest days. The thermostat decides when that … Read more